Blog # 493; Copyright @ 15 July 2018; community-investor.com
Perspective. ‘Land lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, & ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing.’
This blog posting is the sole national advocate, voice, official ombudsman, historian, research report & online communication media for all North American LLCommunities.
To input this blog &/or affiliate with Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance,
a.k.a. COBA7, use Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764
COBA7 Motto: ‘U Support US & WE Serve U!’ Goal of its’ print & online media =
to not only inform & opine, but to transform & improve MHBusiness performance!
_____________________________________________________________________
This Week, a Different Sort of Blog Posting
‘Short & Not So Sweet’
Of the 500 blogs I’ve penned and posted throughout the past decade, none identify more troubling business harbingers than this one! How so?
Since starting in manufactured housing and land lease community management in 1978, I’ve lived and worked with many of you reading these lines – through good and bad times. NOW however, as we recover from our industry’s nadir year 2009, many of us are seeing, with increasing clarity, just how
Tunnel vision consequences (i.e. lack of institutional recognition & collegial respect by federal legislators & regulators) due to continued industry disunity and backbiting among national advocacy entities,.
Perennial corporate consolidation and power plays among far too few elite producers of HUD-Code manufactured homes, along with far too few purveyors of chattel capital,
(&) Heavy-handed land lording practices by some property portfolio owners/operators,
whose actions, taken together, risk derailing manufactured housing and land lease community lifestyle as this nation’s sole best answer to its’ burgeoning affordable housing crisis!
The pivotal question is this: De we care enough about this disquieting present and uncertain future, to
Consolidate all national advocacy entities into one, to effectively lead and better serve every sector of the manufactured housing industry, including land lease communities;
Encourage increased competition among more HUD-Code housing manufacturers, and certainly more independent chattel capital lenders;
(&) Challenge portfolio ‘players’ to focus less on profiteering, more on improving resident relations; and, as Randy Rowe oft said in the past, ensure a fair ‘value proposition’ for homeowners/site lessees, relative to their combined PITI & rental homesite payments.
Well, do we?
***
George Allen, CPM, MHM
COBA7, a division of GFA Management, Inc., dba PMN Publishing
Box # 47034
Indianapolis, IN. 46247
(317) 346-7156
Postscript.
Two things.
First; it’d help me to know whether you agree or disagree with the harbingers (‘forerunners giving notice of the coming of another’) and recommended actions just described. Do so via email: gfa7156@aol.com or letter to above address.
Second. You owe it to yourself, your business interests, and our industry’s salaried and elected leaders, to let them know your ‘take’ on these important matters. Everywhere I go, folk complain about this tripartite status quo, but rarely do I hear solutions. Yours?
With that in mind, know there’ll be open forums, or likely opportunities, for industry issues discussion, at some or all the following events this Summer and Fall:
MHAlive! ‘think tank’ on 6 August, 9-11AM, at the RV/MH Hall of Fame. RSVP a MUST by 31 July. Only $20.00 fee, to defray meeting-related expenses. (317) 346-7156
27th Networking Roundtable, 5-7 September at The Alexander Hotel in Indianapolis, IN. www.getmeregistered.com/COBA7NRT2018 Attendance limited to 200.
MHI’s annual meeting, 23-25 September, at Huntington Beach, CA. (703) 558-0400
SECO Conference, 9-11 October, in Atlanta, GA. If you’ve not attended before, do so this year! Contact genevieve@secoconference.com